Photographer Henry Hargreaves has made a name for himself by using food as a vehicle for the provocative, charming, and even macabre. “People have such an intimate connection with food, but it’s hardly ever shot or considered beyond food porn,” the 35-year-old New Zealand-born Hargreaves says. His most technically complex feat, which he did in collaboration with Caitlin Levin, involved reconstructing some of the world’s most iconic museums and galleries—think licorice-laced Louvre pyramids—made out of gingerbread and other sugary confections, which he exhibited during 2013’s Art Basel. More recently, at the Venice Biennale, he documented death-row inmates’ final meals graphically styled in his No Seconds series, synthesizing elements of the human condition with horrific violence and the mundane.

This Friday, he launches a new series, also in collaboration with Levin, showcasing the way in which societies—across time and continents—feed their poor versus their rich. Power Hungry, which will be on view at Air Circulation, examines the concept that the measure of a civilization is how it treats its weakest members: “We looked at polarizing governments throughout time. What began as a story about rich versus poor, became a narrative about the way cultures suppress lower classes though lack of access to good and nutritious food,” Hargreaves says. In each shot, a wood plank table is divided in two by a tablecloth, delineating the meal for the haves and have-nots. Contemporary North Korea perhaps reveals the most glaring disparity: a giant hunk of Emmental cheese from Switzerland, **Kim Jong Un’**s notorious favorite, is juxtaposed by a meager bowl of porridge. Hargreaves was interested in the dictator, who was recently reported to have been suffering from gout, and uses the table to prove a larger point: “The country projects a reluctance to change, yet inside the upper echelons their culinary tastes have already moved beyond the state.”

His series also exposes the paradox of poverty in first-world countries, where obesity and all of its accompanying ailments have become major problems. The hungry American side of the table features cereal, soda, a loaf of sliced white bread, and an unidentifiable spread. “Starvation and suppression are so common, so effective, people have almost become desensitized to it,” he says. “We wanted to turn the spotlight back on.”